Family Guy

The English-speaking world has been enthralled by Scandinavian fiction of late. Crime thrillers and detective novels by Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell have dominated best-seller lists, their film rights sold to major studios. But there is more to the region's literature than haggard detectives in hostile urban settings. The Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard has gained major publicity in Europe  most of it controversial  with a rather different sort of book.

A Death in the Family is the first volume of six autobiographical novels to be translated...